A meeting between Moscow and Kyiv negotiators in Istanbul, Turkey, March 29, 2022. (Photo: AFP/VNA)

There were no immediate details about the content of Kalin's meetings in Kyiv, but Ankara has been mediating between Ukraine and Russia in efforts to end the conflict. Kalin was accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal. 

Turkey hosted a meeting between Moscow and Kyiv negotiators in Istanbul and another between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Antalya in March. Erdogan is now trying to pave the way for an Istanbul summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Erdogan told President Putin in a phone call on Thursday that Turkey wanted "to establish a lasting peace in the region as soon as possible by increasing the momentum gained in the Istanbul talks".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday discussed the return of American diplomats to Ukraine as well as an aid of 33 billion USD to Ukraine with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba. 

in another development, about 20 women and children have been evacuated from Mariupol’s embattled Azovstal steel plant, according to a Ukrainian commander in the factory and Russian state media. Earlier, the Office of the President of Ukraine said that President Zelensky and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had held talks and discussed the evacuation of people from the city of Mariupol. The press secretary of Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that there is no need to negotiate on the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel plant area in Mariupol, because President Putin has made it very clear that people are free to leave out of this area.